Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Crazy plant lady

As some of you know, I'm an avid gardener. Having a kid has definitely put a crimp in that hobby, but I haven't given up the ghost just yet. The plan for this year was to have even more edible stuff to offset our CSA veggies. It worked out more that we tried some different stuff rather than MORE stuff, but hey. What are you gonna do, right?

The garden plot in May. It's since exploded a bit more. This year, we're doing brussels sprouts (I thought I was picking up a flat of broccoli. Booby is less than enthused), red leaf lettuce, spinach (already gone to flower - better planning next year, I hope), various tomatoes, cukes, one pepper, and yellow and green squash. We also bought one melon plant, which was quickly shaded by a massive raspberry bush, and one eggplant, which has a pretty purple flower and that I expect will die (but you never know).

Strawberry plants. These tend to get eaten by the birds, so we've bought bird netting that I am, so far, too lazy to put up.

The aforementioned raspberry cane. We've had maybe one "harvest," which consists of one of us going out and eating the ripe berries off the bush. Delicious! I had about three of these on my cereal this morning.

Yellow squash. We've had a little trouble with blossom-end rot, but overall these are a much greater success than they were last year (when they mostly just rotted). We have tons of blossoms, so I'm guardedly hopeful.

And finally, a non-vegetable feature. This is dranunculus vulgaris, purported to stink like rotting flesh. I had thought it was like the one I saw on an episode of CSI, but that one is much smellier, apparently. The reality? The day it bloomed, I smelled something that was kind of like a bag of garbage left in the sun. Nothing too awful, no rotting meat or anything (though it was well-attended by blowflies). Of course, I have a lot of fragrant plants that smell good that may have offset this one. Still, an interesting showpiece for the flower garden, and the smell only lasts a day.

4 Comments:

Oh my goodness, I long to pluck that beautiful strawberry and any little friends it might have and throw them into a glass of prosecco, just like that enjoyed by Giada and her enormous-but-very-lovely head on the island of Capri.

our yellow squash took, hot peppers did, and the rosemary. i had one of those topsy turvey tomato planters with baby tomatoes on it, and that took. but the rest didn't work out. i have a terrible time remembering the importance of watering the garden.

looking at the pictures, especially of the berries, mmmm. next round of it plant some berries...